Elgar The Apostles

 Day 28

Elgar The Apostles op 49

Soloists

London Philharmonic choir and orchestra

Sir Adrian Boult

I've never been an out-and-out Elgarian. I think that the Enigma Variations is one of the most perfect masterpieces in the repertory and love the first symphony - I often wonder what it must have been like at the very first rehearsal when the players first encountered that motto theme. On the other hand I've never quite seen why the Cello concerto has such a devoted following and when my orchestra played the Violin concerto I felt (quite disgracefully)  that there was a great 20 minute piece struggling to get out of a 50 minute epic. 

I did play in a performance of the Dream of Gerontius at university and struggled to get on its wavelength - like many people I found the text very hard to take and at times Elgar's response to it was very harmonically diffuse. But if Janet Baker were available I might well take her to my mythical desert island to sing the Angel's farewell.

I had head a brief extract from The Apostles a few years ago when the scene with the Shofar (ram's horn) was features, but otherwise I knew nothing of the music. It is an epic piece scored for very large forces including 6 soloists, a choir and semi choir and a full orchestra with organ, harps and lots of percussion.

I have to say that I find the whole aesthetic of the piece difficult to related to. The Victorian oratorio tradition of massive choirs which take part in the narrative as well as reflect on it, and solo singers who take named parts is very far removed from anything that I am used to. But more than that, the whole pacing of the work seems odd - lines which in an opera would come and go in an instant or be the basis for a whole area seem here to be neither one thing nor the other. And it had to be said that I find that Elgar's word setting can be very odd - there often seem to be cases where the 'wrong' syllable was stressed for no apparent reason. Listening to the two hours of music here did make me appreciate how much Walton was able to pack in to the 35 mins or so of Belshazzar's Feast. An unfair comparison of course as Walton was writing in a very different era, but there were in fact less than 30 years between the two works. It feels much longer.  Incidentally Elgar and Walton did meet but only once: in the gents' lavatories at Hereford Cathedral in the interval of a concert where they both had works performed! Walton was too tongue tied to say anything - which in the circumstances was probably for the best!

In purely musical terms of course there is a huge amount to enjoy in The Apostles. The range of orchestral writing is extraordinary with all sorts of unexpected effects - not least the ram's horn I mentioned earlier - and the choral writing tests the choir to their limits - with some very atmospheric effects for the semi-chorus and off-stage voices. But as is often the case with Elgar, it is the simplest, most contemplative music which has the greatest impact. The end is a really good example of this - it might seem complex on the page with so many different strands going on, but in essence the music has a tenderness and directness that leaves a really strong impression. To hear the ending live in a cathedral acoustic must be a wonderful experience.

Boult's recording, the first, stands up well after 50 years and in his 80s he had mastery of the score and of the pacing required over such a long piece. The soloists are a rather mixed bunch - the style does now sound rather old fashioned and the singer taking the part of Judas struggled at times.

So I was glad that I have at least listened to The Apostles. The recording has sat on my shelf for a very long time. I might dip into parts of it again - particularly the orchestral introductions and the end, but I suspect that it may be a long time before I am ready to hear the full piece again. But I will try to include The Kingdom later in this project.